Women have good reason to be enraged yet we tend to be the last ones to acknowledge this vibrant inner resource. Instead, we go through our lives maintaining a good front. We may have all of the trappings-good life, higher education, and material gain, yet we have an inherent discontent with our lives that won’t go away. We manage to look okay from the outside, hiding those periods of despair when we feel everything caving in on us by keeping to ourselves. We express confidence on the surface and feel dread or fear underneath. We know we feel chaotic and on the edge, but we hide it, sometimes beautifully, even from ourselves. This is accomplished by wearing Disguises of Rage.

Disguises are our inner rage child’s armor-the coats we wear year round to cope with the chill of life, even on a warm day. They are our ways to be in control of a chronically frightening life and are symbolic templates of older stories of rage that require our attention. They have played a significant role in our survival but they interfere with our authentic presence in the world. We continue to wear our disguises because we perceive these obscure expressions of rage as being safer and more acceptable than truth itself.

My research reveals six Disguises of Rage(TM) worn by high functioning women:

o Dominance-you are highly critical and judgmental, controlling your world to avoid being controlled by it, and keeping others at arm’s length to avoid your terror of needing them.

o Defiance-you are perpetually angry and use anger to divert your need for love and approval, often from those who disturb you. You use anger to avoid intimacy with the truth of now.

o Distraction-you never have a minute, filling your time with self-defeating diversions to avoid intolerable feelings of emptiness, and to avoid the terror of occupying and resting in your body.

o Devotion-you take perfect care of others often sacrificing your own truth and well being to avoid knowing and receiving the care you desire and often secretly deserve.

o Dependence-you deny your own personal power staying financially insecure and emotionally young out of your fear of losing support and affiliation with others.

o Depression-you seldom have the energy to do what’s best for you yet serve others well. You live a down-hearted lifestyle to shut down overwhelming feelings of grief and disappointment.

These categories are not intended to simplify or categorize our complex lives. Rather they are attempts to reveal our deceptions of rage and to invite us to reexamine what might ordinarily be considered normal or justified behavior.

Disguises keep us from experiencing the pure nature of rage. When we don’t allow this experience, we can’t heal it. Rage should not be understood as a useless emotion-empty of knowledge or wisdom. Rather rage is intense fear-oppressed energy housed deep in our bodies and our bone. Rage is the daughter of our traumas, twin of our shame, burden of our denied histories, foreign language of our emotional pain, AND the wisdom that helps us heal.

Of course, allowing yourself to feel the pure energies of rage does not mean you run amuck justifying your expression of rage. Healing rage is a process of gradually appreciating-through experiences and practice-that we are much more than what has happened to us in our lives. My Celebration of Rage(TM) and Generational Healing(TM) retreats offer experiences to transcend rage. Fundamentally, we are challenged with becoming reacquainted with our basic goodness and life purpose. This requires that we give up what is familiar behavior (our disguises), rest in the richness of our current lives, and commit ourselves to choices that support our healing. We break our loyalty to suffering and stop over-identifying with our fears. We learn how to rest in the space in between our worries while cultivating an open heart, and we become less reliant on our disguises of rage and more aware of the wisdom behind them. For example:

o The Wisdom of Dominance is Discernment-the ability to see clearly and hold multiple truths without judgment.

o The Wisdom of Defiance is Truth Telling-the ability to courageously speak the truth from the heart without intent to hate or harm.

o The Wisdom of Distraction is Spontaneous Free Will-the ability to trust our intuition without hesitation and to be generous without greed or urgency.

o The Wisdom of Devotion is Harmony-the ability to serve in life with compassion without obligation and self-deception.

o The Wisdom of Dependence is Originality-the ability to express our unique power and purpose creatively and joyfully without apology.

o The Wisdom of Depression is Spacious Solitude-the ability to rest well in our own skin and to become our own refuge without shame.

Rage is a natural resource of misused energy. Leonard Cohen says it well: There is a crack in everything…that’s how the light gets in. As we embrace the cracks of our early experiences as opportunities for light or insight, we discover that It is not rage that we fear but rather the intense clarity of our own light. Our challenge is to transform the negative energies of rage into self-empowering fuel for our lives and for future generations.